Disclaimer: I don't own Pern. I do, however own most of the characters in this story.
Chapter One: Dragonbattle
Tristan looked down at the mottled eggs, twenty-three in all, including the golden egg. Gold, like the queen who hovered above the clutch. Twenty-three more dragons. Thyrath, the mother dragon, gently nosed the precious golden egg, shell hard from the heat of he Hatching Ground sands. Her rider, Nairyry, placed a hand on the golden egg and spoke reassuringly in a voice too soft for Tristan to catch to her dragon.
Twenty-three dragons due to hatch tomorrow or maybe the next day. And it wasn't just any Hatching, though all were special and unique. This might very well be his Impression day, the day he bonded to a dragon hatchling. He turned away from the clutch smiling and jumped. Jessica, also formerly of Earth, grinned.
"Boo."
Tristan stuck his tongue out at her and she grinned wider.
"Any time soon now." As if he didn't already know and was counting the minutes. Jess took a quick glance at the eggs, lingering for a moment on the queen egg. Golden Thyrath looked over at them, then past them with a contented rumble. They looked back.
Nairyry, Thyrath's rider, smiled at them as she came up the stairs to the stands. Nais Weyr was the first and only Weyr in the Southern Continent to be situated as the northern ones were in old volcanic craters. Their mountain home was near landing, the one closest to the sea. In fact it was only a short walk to the beach, without a forest trek.
Jess smiled slightly. Some things never changed. The Goldrider still wore the blue high-top converse and sunglasses Jess had bought for her during her brief stay on earth some weeks before. She was not wearing the black trench coat at least, instead regular Pern-style loose pants, the better for dragonriding, but with an airy, light blue skirt over the dark blue of the pants. Over she wore a cropped-sleeve, loose pale violet shirt, and heeled black boots, the better for the hot Hatching Ground sands.
She began without preamble. "The rest of the candidates are going to be allowed in tomorrow, just before they're due to shell, but Thyrath wants you to be the first to touch the eggs."
"Really?" The pair could not disguise how eager they were to actually place their hands on the eggs. That was a wished-for honor every young person on Pern, Candidate or no, secretly harbored.
"Go in right now; they don't bite- in the shell. And out of it only food." The queenrider shooed the unresisting teenagers onto the hot sands. They grimaced at the temperature, then tried to ignore it. Jess could see a shell that was grayer, and mottled with black. As always when seeing it on her VIP visits to this room, she frowned in puzzlement. She went over and knelt by the egg. It was not small compared to the others, rather nearly as large as the queen egg.
Tristan was scrubbing his hands on his jeans in preparation to touch the nearest egg to the entrance, one of the larger ones, while Nairyry looked on in some veiled amusement. Thyrath rumbled and he spun, wondering if he had done anything wrong, but she was looking at Jess. She was just laying both palms flat on the surface of the large gray and black egg.
"It probably won't hatch." The three turned around. W'lam, rider of bronze Jurcath, the dragon who had flown Thyrath, stood at the entrance.
"It will." Jess didn't say anything else.
"Look at it," argued Tristan. "It's not the same color as the others, like it's diseased. The gold egg is over there, you know." He pointed to the obviously gold egg.
"She'll hatch. You'll see." She got up and left the Hatching Sands.
"How d'ya like that?" Tristan frowned at the retreating girl, addressing the comment to W'lam. "You said yourself it prob'ly won't! And she didn't even touch the queen egg." He stood up from his examination of his egg and turned to another, trailing a final hand over the last one. He felt a faint thrum beneath his fingers.
'And why did she call the egg a she? Except for queens, there's no way to tell what gender it is in the egg. Is there?'
000
Jess had felt something in that egg. Someone. Like when the dragons chose to let her speak with them, but fainter, farther away.
She stopped at the other end of the tunnel and looked out on the beach. Just for a moment she closed her eyes and leaned against the side of the tunnel, feeling the roughness under her hands.
Then she straightened up and continued down the beach aimlessly. After a time she turned towards the water and, holding her shoes in one hand stood and let a wave engulf her feet. She stared across the water, so much greener than that of earth.
Jess didn't do anything for such a long time that the incoming tide swelled up nearly to her knees. When the sun made a scarlet and yellow appearance from behind a cloud she blinked at last and took a few steps away from the pounding waves. Then she sat back on the sand and watched the sun sink towards the horizon.
She had never once hesitated in the knowledge that she should stay on Pern, but she couldn't help wondering what was happening there, on Earth. A sudden grin sprang to her face as she remembered the awe in peoples' faces after Thyrath with her, Nairyry and Tristan on her back had swooped and caught a window washer as he fell off his building while watching her fly off the Empire State Building.
Vaguely she wondered if they had cleaned up the mess yet. But that was not the right thing to think, she corrected herself with a frown. She was now millennia from that year. She rephrased it with a little difficulty.
If the same amount of time had taken place in the two separate whens, would they have gotten all the damage caused by the dragon and her three riders cleaned up yet? Yes, that was more accurate… sort of.
With a sigh she got up and turned back to the Weyr. The light from the sun was nearly gone.
000
Tristan had looked everywhere for Jess he could think of. He was just about to give up and ask if Thyrath could locate her when she herself came up from the beach.
"Hey! There you are!" She looked up startled. Tristan jogged over to her. "Where'd you go? I looked everywhere."
"Oh… down the beach." She turned and continued walking back towards the small room she occupied presently.
Tristan stared after her, wondering what she was thinking to seem so melancholy and distant.
Back in the room Jessica sat on the bed, legs crossed, and stared into the distance. A sudden mental cry from a dragon brought her to her feet in an instant.
Within a second she was out the door. Outside she spotted Tristan running as frantically as she.
They could hear the sounds now that they were on the alert. Tristan skidded to a halt in the sand and listened at the tunnel entrance. Voices, frantic, and then a cry from a dragon, then something smashing. Sounds of a great battle followed. Jessica and Tristan closed their eyes and stood in the doorway, calling out like thunder in their minds, calling the dragons.
They dodged aside just in time as a feline came tearing out of the cavern entrance, holding in its jaws the body of a green dragonet.
Without a second thought they ran for all they were worth into the fray, with the roars of every dragon and every fire lizard, tame and wild within range behind them.
000
They burst out on a scene of battle. Thyrath was defending her eggs, especially the golden egg, as best she could, but felines were everywhere and only so many dragons could fit aloft and on the sands. They fought for their eggs and slaughtered the great cats left and right. Then one creature leapt and the brown dragon who was its target bellowed even above the din and disappeared between for the last time.
Two humans looked on helplessly. They could do nothing; if they were not killed by the enemy the defenders would crush them accidentally.
They could only watch as dragons fought, fire lizards darting here and there between them.
Then the battle was over, the last of the felines slain by Thyrath who flung the carcass against the wall with a savage growl. In the last moment of silence the humans who had gathered behind Jess and Tristan held their breaths, knowing the keening that must follow the deaths of a bronze dragon, a green and a brown.
As the dragons raised their heads, tears streamed down the faces of nearly every human there. Thyrath began it, and every dragon and fire lizard took up the lamentation for not only the adult dragons, but the eight eggs that had been crushed.